Started out good but then fizzled

The pilot to this series was supremely kickass but the show lost steam soon after. The John Bly & The Orb storyline, which should have been the series' main focus, was forgotten about for stretches at a time, then showed up again and was resolved in 2 episodes which felt very rushed, as their story was interesting enough for 4. Once the Bly-Orb storyline was resolved, the idea of having Brisco and Bowler report directly to President Cleveland, much as Wild Wild West had its heroes report to President Grant, was played with but never came to fruition, although it might have been something intended for the second season.

The show's biggest problem was that there were too many filler episodes which didn't use the unique setting and characters to their fullest potential, and felt interchangeable with any western or detective show. Two that swiftly come to mind are the one with Tony Jay as the judge (typical of the thankless roles that this great actor was often stuck with), which took time away from the Orb story, and the one with the reanimated undertaker, whose who-done-it is so predictable that even Scooby and Shaggy could have guessed it.

The series does have quite a lot of good one liners, but somehow they don't carry enough weight to make a good series great. I think this series had a perfect Goldilocks length, as it probably would have jumped the shark and quickly become hated had it continued. What's good is that there was a suitable farewell in the two-part final episode High Treason, one of the best non-Bly-Orb episodes, which is a lot better than most prematurely canceled tv shows get.